


Unwritten

by Noscere



Series: Cladograms and Phylogenies [6]
Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, Loneliness, Long-Distance Relationship, White Rose - Freeform, Writing as wish fufillment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-17 23:25:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7290349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noscere/pseuds/Noscere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Though she knows her characters are fictional, Weiss still can't imagine happy endings for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unwritten

_\- and they kissed, fingers trailing feather-light against scarred skin, wings flared –_

 

“No, that doesn’t sound right.”

Weiss scratched out the sentence with the tip of her crow-quill pen. The pen itself was a luxury: a long primary from a crow, tipped with silver, nib made of the finest stainless steel. It was a relic of the old days before the advent of Scrolls and computers. But it felt good in her hands. In the scroll of ink upon smooth reed-based, acid free paper, there was something that mere bits and bytes on a computer screen couldn’t replicate.

The pen was light, but it was solid, nothing like the ethereal wisps of text that scrolled across screens. She could press her fingers to the screen, but she’d only feel the heat emanating off the plastic. No, she needed something tangible – the black smears of ink dancing down her wrist, the scratch of the nib against the paper, the smell of roses lingering in the book Ruby had bound…

The Schnee Dust Company CEO shook her head. She sank into her leather armchair’s embrace. It was terrible for her back, and unbefitting of her rank, but it reminded her of Ruby’s constant slouch. Physical things. Reminders that her fiancée was a living, breathing human being.

Speaking of the scarlet reaper, Ruby was six months into her contract to eradicate Grimm from the city of Mountain Glenn, and there was no end in sight. Weiss fingered the rose gold ring twined around the base of her left index. It was easier to remember the woman who smelled like cookies and spring rain when their bedroom wasn’t blanketed in the soft Atlesian night.

Now, it was easier to believe that woman of Weiss’s hopes was just another fleeting dream. Now, it was easier to believe that if she pricked her finger, she would wake up and face a cold mansion and a colder father.

 _I miss you_. Weiss picked up a monogrammed handkerchief and pressed it to the wet ink. Black blobs bloomed across the pale blue fabric. _They say you never know what you have until you lose it. I don’t want to lose you too, Ruby. I’ve only had you for six years. I want more time_.

Her Scroll beeped with a message from her father.

Weiss didn’t bother picking it up. After the engagement, Herr Schnee had wasted no time publicly denouncing Ruby. The step-daughter of a woman allied with the White Fang and the niece of a man who dealt with shady Huntsmen? In Herr Schnee’s eyes, that was no person fit to marry his heir.

 _I made my choice_. Weiss brushed the pages of the book. Ruby had commissioned the journal out of her Huntress paycheck: a red-leather bound journal, simple in design, and functional to be carried into an executive meeting. But Weiss decided to write her stories instead – never rants about wannabe executives or CEOs, the book would be too dangerous in the wrong hands. No, it seemed better to store her stories in a book her fiancée had made. Together, they would write new stories. It was cheesy, but she could only hope tomorrow had better.

After all, her lover had promised. And Ruby never broke her promises.

 

Weiss took up her quill, and began to write once more.

 

_She fled to her lover, like a bird set free from its cage._

 

The CEO quickly scribbled out that line. It was far too cheesy.

 

_Her lover did what no other could: where brambles once lay, Sheva knew how to bend the woods into a functional path_

 

“You must be kidding me,” Weiss grumbled as she crossed out that sentence. “Imagine. The CEO of the largest Dust Company on all of Remnant. Can’t write a decent story to save her life. Okay, Weiss. One more try. Let's use characters you've never had problems writing. Let’s do something silly.”

 

_Misha’s cock twitches, hardening as she makes these soft huffs of breath when her breasts dip to his balls and her mouth’s tight around his dick._

Weiss almost ripped the page in her haste to blot out those words.

“Nope nope nope,” she chanted, mimicking her fiancée. “Nope. I’m terrible at this. Ninjas of Love is a terrible example of this sort of fiction. Nope. Nope.”

 _‘This is filth!_ ’ Weiss could almost hear Ruby cry. ‘ _Filth!_ ’

Her ears burned.

“Never again,” she muttered and tossed her quill aside.

 

The book sat before her, empty pages taunting her.

Weiss flipped through it, searching for new stories to continue. The names of her characters popped up: Rin and Ceyla, Sheva and Misha, Xin Yue and Darcy… There were always two – two girls, two boys, or a boy and a girl – each from families founded on friendship and not blood – always two people who found their ways in a world that had always disdained them.

She trailed a finger along Rin and Ceyla’s story: Rin, an archer with hair as blue as the Atlesian seas who tired of a life of violence, and Ceyla, the spy who had never stopped running. Rin fell in love with a woman named Triss, before finding herself torn between her partner and her lover. In the end, she chose Ceyla, and from partners they went to lovers. It was an old story, its plotline rehashed by so many bad movies, but in her words it felt like something entirely new.

“They really do share a lot of similarities with Ruby and I.” A fond smile crept up Weiss’s lips, as the ghosts of Ruby’s kisses fluttered over her neck. “What I wouldn’t give to have her back again…”

And therein lay a truth. These partnerships, these stories of friends who evolved into lovers and lovers who fell out of love to become friends once again – in them, she saw her longing. She wrote of loneliness and longing, because they were her companions for over a decade, and their shadow had never left her pen. Screens and quick calls on her Scroll could take away the loneliness for an hour or two, but until she had Ruby’s solid presence and Yang’s laughter and Blake’s smile, Weiss had trouble feeling whole.

So she filled the void with stories of those who never leave, and hoped it would be enough.

 

The clock chimed 2 AM. It was 7 AM in the city of Mountain Glenn.

Loneliness swelled within her chest, as inevitable as the slow creep of time.

Weiss took out her scroll. She imagined Ruby, most likely waking up in her barracks, ready to assault the day anew. Her fiancée may be a seasoned Huntress, but that old fear still lingered in Weiss’s head – _one wrong move, one claw too close, and I’ll be lonely once more…_

The dialtone droned.

And suddenly, it hiccuped, as someone picked up the Scroll on the other end.

“Ruby?” Weiss asked.

_Please, don’t let it be her field officer, I don’t want any bad news, I just want my fiancée again._

“Mmmm?” Her fiancée yawned. “Hiya, sweetie. Didja have another nightmare?”

“No, no nightmares.” Weiss hesitated. What seemed so easy on paper sticks in her throat, like ink coagulating in its pot.

Ruby snapped awake. “Is it your dad? Does Yang have to pay someone a visit?”

“Tempting,” Weiss admitted, “but… no… I… I just wanted to say–“

 _Say it, you moron_ , she chided herself, _don’t let this go unspoken as well._

Ruby, as always, seemed to have the gift of foresight.

“Aww! Is my wife gonna admit she loves me?”

“You dolt!” Weiss said, and indignation was always easier to reach than sincerity. She hated bearing her heart, holding out its pages for anyone to read. “Of course I love you! And you know that!”

Ruby laughed. Sadness welled up in her spring-sweet voice.

“I know, Ice Queen,” she said, the old joke washing over Weiss with its familiarity. “And I know you have trouble saying it.”

“You do have a point.”

“Do you want to talk about anything?” Ruby asked. Weiss imagined her fiancée winding a corner of a sleeping bag over a trigger-callused finger. “Even the plot of your next story. How are Rin and Ceyla doing?”

“As well as they can.” Weiss twirled the crowquill pen between her fingers. “Rin is a bit of a broken bird. Ceyla… well, she does the best she can.”

“No happy endings?”

“As happy as it’ll ever be, I suppose.”

 

A comfortable silence falls over the line.

“I know it might not be a fairy tale ending,” Ruby eventually said, “but as long as they’re happy, what does it matter?”

“It would be nice if people could stop suffering.”

“Don’t we all wish that?” Ruby laughed a little. “Well, except the Grimm, but they’re big meanies anyways.”

Weiss chuckled. The heaviness in her gut eased a little. “Before I met you, I never would have imagined anyone calling a soul-stealing monster a _big meanie_.”

“First time for everything!” Ruby chirped, but she quickly sobered. With the voice of a seer, she said, “I’m going to come home, Weiss. There’s always a risk, but no matter what happens, I’ll find my way back to you. I promise.”

The Schnee Dust Company CEO shook her head. Hope was a fragile thing that sat behind iron bars and thick plexiglass shields in the center of her chest.

"Sweetie?" Ruby asked.

Tears prickled at the corners of Weiss's eyes.

“I’m just a CEO, Ruby,” she said slowly. “I deal in the business of breaking deals and dreams. I’m a writer, a CEO, and sometimes a Huntress. But I wish – I wish I had the powers my characters do, to just – wipe it all away, give everyone – give _us_ – a happy ending…”

“Keep writing, love.” She could almost see Ruby smiling at her. “I can’t promise you a happy ending, but I can promise I’m coming back.”

“It’s not like having you here,” Weiss whispered. “I miss you. I love you.”

“Oh, Weiss,” Ruby said, in the voice devotees saved for their gods.

Loneliness swelled over them and consumed them both.

In the silence sat words unspoken, and promises unwritten. There were a thousand things Weiss wanted to say, and none of them seemed appropriate until Ruby was curled against her bosom and Weiss's fingers were carding her hair.

 

Weiss’s Scroll beeped with another message: this one from Blake, on the subject of Faunus labor disputes.

“You have to go soon,” Ruby said.

“One more minute. Please. Give me this much."

"You know, you really have changed from the Beacon days," Ruby said, and Weiss could hear the smile in her voice. "I like it."

She heard a pop of wet lips, and then hiss of wind blowing.

“Did you catch that?” Ruby asked.

“Did you just try to blow me a kiss?”

“Yup! Just something to tide you over.”

 Something warm and light settles over her heart.

“You dolt,” is all she manages to say.

“Love you too, Weiss.”

“I love you, Ruby,” she says, and disconnects.

 

And though they stand on completely different continents, the loneliness recedes. Weiss carries her newfound peace into her too-empty bed, carrying it even when she buries her face in Ruby’s pillow. She carries the stories of partners turned lovers, and hopes she will find the same.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So… yes. This happened. To those of you who still read my writing: I'm sorry for the drop in quality. Sunshade, Nightlight will return with more angst when I figure things out.
> 
> I imagine Weiss is an intensively private person, and so takes out her hopes and fears on fictional characters subject to her whims. In short, she plays god in writing, to feel more powerful when she no longer has control over a situation.


End file.
